About to get a latitude

I'm thinking about ordering a 620 this week. My only concern- although it will be most used for school work- is DVDs, as I plan on watching them once in a while. Sound is no issue, as I will use headphones on the road and a speaker system while at home, however, how do movies look (and animated shows, such as family guy ) ? Will the NVIDIA be better, even though I am leaning towards the 950 to reduce heat and get better battery life? Assuming it's better, A LOT better? or.... Thanks!

 

The nvidia graphics chip won't change your DVD viewing experience so you're fine with the GMA950 for heat and battery savings. If you do CAD/gaming then it's a different story.

 

Just as huggybear said, the video card does not really play a factor in DVD playback. Video cards are more important to gamers.

What does play a factor is the type of screen. Your screen quality will determine how good of a picture you are seeing.

 

As SG stated, DVD playing isn't that demanding. The screen is the critical factor. Btw, the Latitudes have very good quality. I have a six year old one and it still works flawlessly (except the dead battery of course).

 

I had both the 950 and NVIDIA:

950 Pro:
Better battery life

NVIDIA Pro:
Allows more adjustments of color and screen brightness/contrast
Con:
Lower battery life

However, depending on the manufacturer, the screen can be bright (Samsung) or grainy (AUO) or be dim with light leakage (LG).

No advantage in DVD playing with dedicated graphics.

 

Sounds good. However, I think I read somewhere that the overall screen quality is better with the NVIDIA (brighter and more crisp?). I will be mostly using AOL, internet, powerpoint with pictures, word, movies, and school stuff. Will the 950 be sufficient? Again, I'm not worried about the 60 bux, it's more of the heat and battery life that's an issue.

 

You have more parameters to adjust with the NVIDIA. Brightness can be set above what Windows can do. I thought the D620 with the 950 was dim but I also had the LG not the Samsung.

Heat I will tell you is not an issue since my core temps are actually 5-10 degrees less with the NVIDIA.

My battery life is shorter but the confounding factor for me is that the screen is a lot brighter and I don't know if it is due to the NVIDIA or the Samsung screen. It's a crap shoot what screen you end up with. If we can only see the 3 screens with each permutation which is 6 different screens. I lucked out (except for worse battery life).

 

Glad I waited until this week for the $400 off $1599 or more... I was looking into hard drives more, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend the extra 40bucks for the 7200 rpm 80gb hard drive. Will it increase performance that much over the 5400 ? Thank you.

 

I just want to say that the speaker on the D620, although having only one, is surprising good. I've watched DVDs on it without using headphones. It's pretty loud, too.

 

Regarding sound, games like the EA sports series sound very good and you forget there is one speaker.

When you try some song with dynamic range or 'high treble', you get some noise/distortion.

 

Hmmm, my D620 has a QDS0047 display. Which of the three types of screens does that relate to? I notice some light leakage, and at its' brightest, it is about average.

I was thinking...maybe someone can chime in here, whether 14.1" displays are interchangeable between Dell models...Would a 14.1" display from an XPS M140 work in a D620 (are the connectors the same, etc.)? I've sort of abandoned my XPS M140 since it is only a lowly single core laptop!